Locked gates like these at Oakland's Brookfield Village Elementary aren't the real route to safety.

Locked gates like these at Oakland's Brookfield Village Elementary aren't the real route to safety.

Photo: Lacy Atkins, The Chronicle

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In response to the tragedy in a Connecticut elementary school killing 26 people Oakland Police Officer Rick Moore spent more time than usual at his assigned schools, Friday Dec. 14, 2012, in Oakland, Calif. the halls of Oakland Technical High School and Piedmont Avenue Elementary, less

In response to the tragedy in a Connecticut elementary school killing 26 people Oakland Police Officer Rick Moore spent more time than usual at his assigned schools, Friday Dec. 14, 2012, in Oakland, Calif. ... more

Photo: Lacy Atkins, The Chronicle

How do we keep children safe at school?

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The days of "it could never happen here" don't exist anymore.

If it happened at Columbine or in an Amish schoolhouse, at Oakland's Oikos University or in a small Connecticut suburb, a school massacre can happen anywhere - and every principal, teacher and police officer in the country knows it.

They plan for it. They train for it. Some have security cameras. Many require identity badges. Most require visitors to sign in at the office, while both the big-city and small-town schools hold drills to practice lockdowns.

Still, at some point it happens again. On Friday, 20 children and seven adults died at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., when a gunman opened fire in a classroom just after 9:30 a.m. An eighth adult was killed at the gunman's home.

And as before, the country now asks the inevitable question: How do we stop it from happening again?

Bay Area school officials said Friday that they have taken lessons from every school tragedy: ways to boost security and preparedness, and, increasingly, ways to prevent it long before anyone picks up a gun.

"We have video cameras set up at various entrances to our school, we have a sign-in procedure at the front desk for all visitors, we ask that all visitors that stay on site wear a visitor's badge, we practice lockdown procedures yearly, and we have a school site safety plan and team," said Michelle Chang, principal of San Francisco's Dianne Feinstein Elementary, in a letter to parents Friday. "Next week, we will be practicing lockdown procedures again."

Learning from tragedies

In Oakland, the district is rare in the region in still having its own school police force.

Like law enforcement agencies across the country, they review school tragedies to learn from them. Officers, for example, no longer wait for SWAT teams to show up as was the case at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo, in April 1999. In teams, they enter buildings immediately to aid those injured and to prevent more casualties - as seen in the response to the April shootings at Oikos University, Williams said.

And they carry bigger guns after seeing some of the weapons used in previous shootings.

They also practice a wide range of scenarios in different types of school buildings.

"You can't think of everything," Williams said. "You try to be ready for as much as you can."

Despite all the preparation, school massacres with multiple victims are rare.

From 1992 to 2012, 468 people have been killed in a school-associated act of violence, with 348 shot to death, mostly one at a time, according to the National School Safety Center.

More than half of the school-related killings nationwide were determined to be gang-related, interpersonal disputes or suicide. Few were the victims of the kind of school massacre that makes national news and scares schools and communities into action.

Post-Columbine era

While metal detectors and security cameras were in demand at many schools after the Columbine massacre, their popularity faded.

The emphasis on equipment and police presence has given way, especially in the Bay Area, to more comprehensive prevention programs that include not only stronger locks and perhaps bigger gates, but also critical intangibles like counseling, antibullying campaigns, mental health support, more adults keeping tabs on struggling kids and a culture where kids speak up when something is wrong.

"The single greatest safety measure is a well-informed student body that will notice something fishy and tell an adult," said San Francisco Superintendent Richard Carranza on Friday.

In Oakland, officials agreed that it takes a lot more than metal detectors.

School police officers, for example, spend much of their time at schools, getting to know students, gaining trust and identifying kids who might need support, Williams said.

"Tragedies such as this reinforce the urgency of the work we do around mental health and conflict resolution," said Troy Flint, Oakland Unified spokesman. "Our mental health professionals are always available to speak with students and staff about the effects of violence in the community and are on heightened alert given the sensitivity of today's events."

Still, the Newtown tragedy puts school officials and law enforcement on standby - just in case it could happen here.

"This event is highly unusual, and in fact, in study after study, schools are named as one of the safest places for our students to be," said San Leandro Unified Superintendent Cindy Cathey in a statement. "I am asking staff, as we have been - especially during this pre-holiday season - that we are extra vigilant in our observations and general security measures."

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